September 25, 2008

No sheep allowed

Through summer's sweltering heat, through the monsoon season's torrential downpours and even after the city's recent accumulation of air-conditioned shopping malls, Sandhya Tiwary, 20, and her friends remain loyal to their afternoon strolls through the crowded, muddy lanes of College Street, long known as India's "neighborhood of books."

It's 3 p.m., just after their university classes. On a bustling street corner, Tiwary and her friends eat a quick lunch of Kolkata's favorite street food: steaming, egg-dipped chicken Kathi rolls -- with a side of freshly churned yogurt served in a salmon-colored earthen pot. Then, the group takes off to browse the secondhand -- and sometimes third- or fourth-hand -- books.

The 1,200 dilapidated bookstore kiosks create a maze of roadside cubbyholes stacked with dusty dictionaries in Hindi, underlined chemistry textbooks in Urdu and dozens of worn copies of a three-volume "History of West Bengal." Nearby are piles of "Mars and Venus in the Bedroom."

April 19, 2008

Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man

In 1951, George Whitman opened a bookshop-commune in Paris. George, 92, still runs his "den of anarchists disguised as a bookstore," offering free, dirty beds to poor literati, cutting his hair with a candle and gluing the carpet with pancake batter. More than 40,000 poets, travelers and political activists have stayed at Shakespeare and Company, writing or stealing books, throwing parties and making soup or love while living with George's generosity and fits of anger. Illustrious guests include Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Jacques Prévert, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, James Baldwin and Richard Wright. Welcome to the makeshift utopia of the last member of the Beat Generation

“Sacred Hunger tells the story of the Liverpool Merchant, an 18th century slaving ship that engages in the infamous Triangle Trade. The largely conscripted crew carries firearms to the west coast of Africa and trades them there for slaves, who are packed into a ship's hold with a ceiling so low they cannot rise from their knees during the entire Atlantic crossing. This is the infamous "middle passage" that brings them to the West Indies, where they are then sold for sugar that will be brought back to England.

It's as brutal a portrait of human behavior as you're ever going to read….”

September 15, 2007

Hot books

On May 27, 2007, Tom Wayne and W.E. Leathem, of Prospero's Books, a used book store in Kansas City, publicly burned a portion of his inventory to protest society's increasing indifference to the printed word. The protest was interrupted by the Kansas City Fire Department on the grounds that the owners had failed to obtain the required permits. Book burning on wikipedia

August 16, 2006

“I will be returning the book I bought from you. I didn't like the plot”

“Hi, I am looking for an old book.
What's the title?
I don't remember.
OK. Who is the author?
Sorry, can't remember that either.
OK, you are making it a little tough here. What was it about?
I don't remember. But it was my favorite book when I was little.
I don't think I can help you.
OK, thanks for your help.”

December 12, 2005

Bookstore Hall of Fame

Robert Teeter's Bookstore Hall of Fame is his list of great bookstores. They are characterized by a large selection of books in numerous subjects, with a particularly wide range of literature, and independence of spirit

Book Hunting in Britain: The best bookshop in the world is Tindley and Chapman at 4 Cecil Court, an all-antiquarian pedestrian lane in the West End, just off Charing Cross Road, the old center of the London book trade. (Part 2 of a 5 part series)

Donkey library- Donkey mobile units use electro-communication carts, which have solar units on the roof. As a result of these solar units, solar energy charges a battery, which provides the electric power. Furthermore, many electronic materials are used in this cart; for example, in the back of the cart, there are storage cabinets for batteries, inverters, books, music disks, records, and videocassettes. Consequently, eighty-six percent of the population in the area served by these donkey libraries can now read. Also, Camel library